Spacebound Chronicles

Chapter 21: Mysteries!

To say Meron Trius’ death was shrouded in mystery would be an understatement.

Just as saying that Megafleet had been attacked would be an overstatement.

Yes, a hostile starship had blown a hole into one of Megafleet’s flagships, but that had been it. One single fighter, one single run with one single salvo of missiles against one single starship. After its routine, the attacker was gone for dark space before any of the uncountable warships nearby could react. Shortly after, people would realize Meron Trius had been in that very spot in that very flagship.

Yet more, considering how that attack was directed at an observation lounge rather than a generator or command station made it clear that the first and only goal of the attackers was to kill Meron Trius. The fact that the death happened in the fiery inferno of a relativistic torpedo detonation was a bonus since there would be no body or crime scene to be investigated.

The big question everyone was asking, however, was what exactly caused Meron to be susceptible to permadeath. He was not in a restricted area, and as far as anyone could tell he was the only one caught in the blast, which meant he could not be fighting any key characters that could have triggered it. Furthermore, no one could notice any important items missing, which meant he was not stealing anything important, and no one in the blast’s vicinity had reported any permadeath notices for themselves.

The only light cast over that came when Karyn Voidex, who had accidentally found herself in the middle of the investigation, suggested they checked the surveillance tapes surrounding the area. Footage of Meron was scarce, almost as if he avoided the cameras and guard robots, but in two occasions he had been recorded carrying a heavily modified sniper rifle and wearing a spacesuit.

A lengthy interrogation of every Katana member and close friends of Trius only confirmed absolutely no one knew what exactly he planned to do with that sniper, specially considering how he was a public figure in the Solar League and had no known enemies within it.

The only two people who ever got a chance to make sense of who his target was were Carol and Scott, as the later noticed one very curious fact: the exploded portion of Megafleet, where Meron had been vaporized, provided a perfect line of sight to the maintenance deck where Logan Spacebound and Karyn Voidex had shared a tender moment the night before the attack.

And that solved the question about what triggered the permadeath. To threaten to kill a character who was under influence of permadeath, one would automatically be placed under permadeath as well. Asked about it, Carol confirmed she was logged in during Scott’s shower and Meron’s assassination, and Karyn stood in that very restricted spot when it happened. If his rifle was turned towards her, if he intended to send a bullet through his viewport and her viewport while she was in a permadeath zone, he would be under permadeath potential as well.

That discovery hardly helped pinpoint who was piloting that hostile ship, but it did lead to two meaningful developments.

Firstly, it proved to Scott and Carol that the Chimeras were indeed a relevant threat, and that Meron was indeed with them. How he knew about Scott’s awareness of his treasonous affiliation, however, remained a mystery. Secondly, being the two people who actually knew about the secret organization, that knowledge brought Scott and Carol closer together.

About a month after the happening, Scott had convinced Joey, now the Katana leader, to bring Karyn into their ranks. Given Snorri’s responsibilities with leading the largest Solar League affiliated guild and his mysterious Top 500 errands, Logan Spacebound came to spend way more time with Karyn Voidex than with his old alien friend. As time passed, five hour drives in either direction grew more and more frequent, as Scott and Carol met over the weekends—partially to investigate the bombing, partially to do other things in the real world.

The arrangement was trying, but it revigorated Scott more than it drained him, somehow. The office’s infights had become tolerable and he had come around to happily working on Jane’s vision for Evergreen, despite still secretly working on his space designs on his free time. The deadline drew near, and the tempers raised accordingly, but they made adequate progress.

His working theory was that Tony and Jane were simply venting mechanisms to each other, and that their arguments had no goal other than to relieve the stress. They would argue about everything, from what path to follow, to what color to use, to who to assign to each task. Ultimately, Scott did not care, as long as his weekends were available for him to play and see Carol. Most of the time, despite working on skateboards and graffiti doodles, his mind was on the stars and the mystery of Meron Prius’ murder, and that felt good.

Shortly before the assassination’s two-month anniversary, Jonas Charter, the leader of Serenity, the Solar League’s third largest guild, reached out to Snorri with information their guild’s flagship had recorded during the attack. The delay led to some criticism and accusations that Charter withheld information to hinder Katana and boost his own guild’s ranks. Nevertheless, the information was solid, and Snorri valued its revelations more than he did the gesture.

The Serenity flagship had recorded the attacking ship’s ID, and as soon as Snorri shared that information with Logan, Scott’s stomach twisted before the ominous convergence of facts.

The ship that had killed Meron was name The Glimmer and was supposedly a luxury civilian cruise affiliated to the Solar League. The only problem with that was the fact that the Glimmer had crashed on a desolated icy moon many months ago, and Logan Spacebound had spent days looting its wreckage.

He also remembered verifying that the ship’s flight computer had been intentionally removed. At the time, Snorri had theorized that the crash had been orchestrated and the computer stolen to conceal the crime, but in retrospect it became clear that stealing the computer was the primary goal all along.

But could they, whoever they were, have acted with that much antecedence? Were they planning to use the computer to kill Meron all those months ago?

Unlikely. It was far more plausible that it had had another purpose at first and was later adapted to the more urgent goal of killing Meron.

But by whom?

One day, Scott and Carol sat down at his living room with two stacks of post-its and two skein rolls, with which they built a complex spider web to order the facts: They had Meron, a Chimera agent likely tasked with eliminating Logan.

Then they had a mysterious fighter with the ID of a crashed cruiser killing Meron, in theory to save Logan.

Why?

Was the ship commandeered by the Chimeras, and they were cleaning house once Meron’s identity was compromised?

But how would they know Meron had been compromised to begin with? And by killing him and making Snorri the leader of Katana, wouldn’t the Chimeras be compromising themselves?

As Scott worked alone on the Evergreen project on an ordinary Wednesday, it clicked. The death of Meron promoted Snorri to a leadership position of the most powerful guild in the Solar League. Snorri, for all he knew, fought and pursued the Chimeras. Snorri had investigated The Glimmer’s crash and could have been the one to locate and retrieve its Flight Computer.

It had all come together.

Joey knew Meron was a Chimera all along. However, given how Meron was always safe inside Megafleet, he could not act upon it; he could only prepare.

With the computer he retrieved from The Glimmer, he outfitted a random bomber with which he would be able to attack Megafleet, and, once he was done, he could easily dispose of the craft and pretend it never happened.

All he needed was an opportunity to strike fast and finally, which Meron provided. Somehow knowing Logan Spacebound was a threat to him, Meron himself was waiting for an opportunity to catch Logan into a permadeath situation just as much as Snorri was waiting to catch Meron, and Snorri knew all of that.

Therefore, when Logan and Karyn had walked into the forbidden maintenance hall for a romantic moment, Meron had moved up to a vintage point from where he could snipe his target, but lost the shot when Scott logged out.

Patiently waiting for Logan to log back in, Meron saw Karyn’s return as a sign that the moment was near, and held her in his crosshairs waiting for Logan, not knowing Scott was taking a shower.

During that moment, while he held his aim over Karyn, he was made vulnerable, giving Snorri his opportunity. Snorri, without delay, took said opportunity and destroyed Meron, saving his best friend, ridding the universe of a Chimera and gaining himself the Katana leadership.

The plan was perfect, everything finally made sense.

Jumping out of his work chair, Scott ran to the bathroom, pulling his phone from his pocket, scrolling directly to Joey’s contact.

However, his thumb ghosted of Joey, unable to press it.

He had figured it out, and Snorri was guilty. He had been guilty all along and kept it to himself. His intentions could have been good, but he would still be heavily judged if those revelations saw the light of day.

He pocketed his phone without another thought and marched out of the office.

That was a conversation to be had face to face.